pull down to refresh
221 sats \ 17 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 31 Aug \ on: The Fight for Bitcoin Privacy Has Truly Begun bitcoin
This is another in the multiple attacks upon Bitcoin.
Death by a Thousand Cuts is their strategy.
Bitcoin was created to enable P2P decentralised censorship resistant Means of Exchange.
This was to free us of the need to trust financial institutions who previously monopolised (and still largely do) the provision of transactions between us.
The idea of Bitcoin was to remove the intermediaries and allow us to have direct custody of our money and direct control over our transactions.
The idea being that we demand and apply the right to trade directly without requiring the approval of institutional intermediaries.
Of course the powers that be hated and still hate this idea- it attacks the very base of their control over us.
So this idea has been attacked with KYC and with increasing institutional custody and control.
Yes you and I can still hold Bitcoin and send Bitcoin directly between ourselves, but as the claws of the state and bankers sharpen their grip upon Bitcoin the ability to do this has constantly reduced.
Now OECD nations are proposing broad agreement on reporting requirements to assess tax liability of Bitcoin users. This agreement will be to require reporting of all transactions ostensibly for tax liability assessment purposes but in reality will result in the ability to transact with Bitcoin privately almost impossible because most Bitcoin is already KYCed.
Furthermore ETFs set in place a mechanism to increase the amount of Bitcoin that Cannot be used for P2P MoE - ETFs explicitly characterise Bitcoin as a speculative commodity and obstruct its use to the extent that people hold Bitcoin via ETFs.
How many of us now hold Bitcoin outside of KYC and how many still use it as a direct censorship resistant P2P MoE?
IMO the jaws of the colluding banks and governments are closing upon our freedom to exchange value freely and without fear or favour, with the banks mostly directing this sly obstruction, but with also full collusion of our supposedly democratic governments.
Its seems they do not believe we have the right to free and private MoE- they appear to insist upon maintaining their monopoly of MoE monetary hegemony over us.
Are we surrendering the fundamental principles of Bitcoin (freedom of association, private property rights, privacy and freedom to exchange value P2P without centralised authorities and their arbitrary censorship) for 30 pieces of silver, ie the price pumping that ETFs and institutional capture and control promises?
If ETFs and other state banker constructs (CEXes, KYC etc) expand the market for Bitcoin but undermine its fundamental premise and purpose, then the bankers and governments are now seeking to capture and control Bitcoin and thereby defeat its purpose.
I cannot like this post enough.
God bless joinmarket.
Yes and I share the same concerns. Sometimes, if I really put on my tinfoil hat, the whole situation feels very strange... because in my opinion bitcoin should be a much more important MoE than it already is. I cannot go out to even buy a cup of coffee with bitcoin as much as I would like too... and I feel like I should be able to.
I can't help but feel that the ridiculous KYC and tax-reporting requirements are to be blamed for this... and to those who say 'oh just use monero' well xmr has been delisted from nearly all exchanges and is even 'less' likely to be available for commerce and to buy things (coffee, groceries, gas etc, I don't count dark-web drugs honestly) and every time xmr is used the same tax reporting requirements exist which I think are really really difficult to calculate.
I understand that the government wants taxes from the 'traders' and the 'longers' and 'shorters'... but it also implies that I have to calculate capital gains for a cup a coffee I buy with lightning it's ridiculous.
And were I to spend bitcoin on the 'base layer'... I have to use some combination of privacy tools not to dox my stack of bitcoin - those 'privacy tools' like a coinjoin are required for reasonable privacy. However coinjoining a utxo... especially if it's larger will I be able to sell it on a kyc exchange? Without coinjoins how will I be able to spend bitcoin privately? And if I do coinjoin will I be able to sell that bitcoin on an exchange (there aren't hard and fast answers to this from what I can tell). It's like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't is the way it feels with the way bitcoin is treated.
It feels like shoehorning bitcoin in to a 'speculative digital commodity' box that is NOT to be used as a medium of exchange, even between consenting free people for lawful goods and services. And it's wrong and needs to change.
reply
At the end of the day Bitcoin is freedom technology and the sovereign individual has to figure it out themselves.
reply
That may be true... but I agree with solomonsatoshi too. In fact I agree with his entire post. Coinjoin some bitcoin, for forward-looking privacy so you can buy something on L1, then try to sell it on afterwards on an exchange. Can you?
Spend months if not years buying bitcoin a little at a time, then buy 3 cups of coffee, in between purchases, at random intervals. (Make the 2nd one a latte). Then calculate your 'capital gains' taxes. Can you?
Find google-searched articles, many of them, that don't focus on bitcoin's price, trading, trading TA, or "what it's gonna do" or... focus on scams at bitcoin ATMs with elderly people (those articles apparently get a lot of coverage). "What is bitcoin gonna do" typically means the price on coinbase which is arguably the least interesting thing going on. See where I'm going with this? Am I the only one with a tinfoil hat?
reply
Solid points
reply
anyone is free to choose to use Bitcoin, or not - and anyone who chooses to use Bitcoin is free to choose the terms on which they do so.
each approach has it's own characteristics, and defines the experience for the user - which at large, over time, is the path, or journey, to Bitcoinisation.
acting in this awareness, anyone can experience the use of an open access, permissionless protocol in any context they prefer - that is the reality.
reply
Do a basic google search on bitcoin -
The vast majority of the results that come up are articles about its 'price price price'.
Not about the hashrate, not about its decentralization, not about necessarily running a node (although there are many resources on this)... not about the mempool, not about its block construction or even where to spend bitcoin or how to custody it...
Not about new bitcoin software or signing threshold schemes - nope. Just price price price what is it going to do - go up or go down. That's it. So and so trader says 'it's going up' or this or that trader says 'it's going down' - some trader 'breaks their silence' and 'they're worried'. Because of some stupid chart? Where was that trader a year or more ago?
And I can't help but feel this type of coverage is for the idiots, whoever they are, that keep their sats on an exchange. They don't hold their own keys, they don't run a node, they aren't using bitcoin to actually pay for things, they aren't using lightning in any meaningful way if they use it at all... it's just 'hey what's the price doing'. And so the only way they interact with bitcoin is to sell it with the click of a button, which is not on-chain but instead just an exchange database. They don't make bitcoin transactions themselves so... I guess that's why the only thing they know is the price? I mean, do they check mempool dot space to see what's going on?
In many ways the price is the LEAST interesting thing going on with bitcoin. It is a volatile currency that goes up and down in value but that is not really a reason to have it... in my opinion its inherent qualities and network effects is what makes it valuable NOT the fiat price. And yet... look at the Google search results it plays right into the hands of 'speculative store of value' instead of medium of exchange.
reply
My central point is Bitcoin is being systematically attacked and undermined and the fundamental purpose and ethos of the protocol is increasingly undermined.
You fail to refute any of the key facts and issues I raise.
Rather you appear to seek to dismiss them by ignoring them.
That's not a path to rational truth- that's simple denial.
reply
no, it's the reality that anyone can make a choice and act upon it - the choices people make are what matters - different people, in different places, are making different choices - a casual look around the wider world clearly shows that.
the ability of any Bitcoin user to reclaim power, and assert it, is undiminished.
it is only within your frame of reference that anything is being undermined - Bitcoin user unaffected.jpeg
reply
The protocol as a whole has been under constant and continuous attack and the ability of individual protocol users to utilise the protocols P2P MoE potential is steadily being undermined as more and more Bitcoin is locked up into institutional capture and control and as the perception of Bitcoin as a P2P MoE is steadily eroded. The bankers and governments are deliberately engineering this as Bitcoin as a speculative commodity is much less of a threat to their monopoly power than Bitcoin as a MoE.
As individual users we can still use Bitcoin for MoE but there are already severe restrictions imposed on such use, primarily via the tax reporting obligations which make P2P MoE effectively impractical to comply with in a lawful way.
If the trend continues and Bitcoin is more and more portrayed and used as a speculative commodity it becomes more and more possible to justify a ban on private custody. Lalalalala all you like, but at that tipping point- its Game over Rover.
reply
there is a bigger game playing out than your myopic argument can accommodate
reply
Interesting then that you cannot articulate what you allege.
What is the bigger game and what is myopic about what I have described?
Looks like you are shooting the messenger ~ because you cannot refute the message.
reply
where are these things happening ?
to whom are they happening ?
are they happening to you ?
none of the things you mention are happening to me, because i make the choice not to use Bitcoin on those terms, in those places.
all your positions seem based in fear - fear of what someone else might do.
Bitcoin is something that YOU can CHOOSE to DO.
the people, and the places that allow others to choose for them will suffer for as long as they do so.
maybe they will invoke tyranny, maybe they will experience collapse, maybe they will get wiped out, it's on them (and maybe you).
the solution is of course, to make choices for and by themselves, be it individually, and/or societally.
individuals, networks, and countries are making their choices - this is the journey to Bitcoinisation the world is on - whether it is faster or slower, lumpier or smoother, dramatic or incremental for anyone, anywhere, is entirely dependent on themselves.
it's there for anyone to notice, and experience.
reply
I am describing how the use of Bitcoin by everyone is being steered very strongly away from its original fundamental purpose...as a P2P MoE alternative to the fiat imposed MoE monopoly.
This steering is being done by the bankers and governments who currently gain most of their power via the fiat monetary system over which they have claimed and asserted a monopoly over MoE.
I want to be able to use Bitcoin freely as a MoE and have used it in a small way offering payment in my business, knowing that even doing that I risk sanctions imposed upon me by my bank.
Banks have almost universally sanctioned any person or business involved in Bitcoin use as a MoE. If you dont see this as market obstruction and obstruction of free market capitalism then you are in DENIAL of Reality.
Use of Bitcoin as a MoE in almost all jurisdictions incurs tax reporting obligations which effectively make Bitcoin impracticable for any rational person or business- this is state imposed obstruction of citizens freedom of choice regarding MoE.
You cannot choose to use Bitcoin for MoE without incurring huge obstruction from banks and governments - if you deny that you are denying the truth and therefore an apologist for that obstruction and those who are imposing that obstruction.
Surely they employ people to act as apologists for them and to spread narratives that support, excuse or obfuscate their obstruction. This is the shit monopolists do and this is the shit we need to call out if we are to acknowledge their parasitic rentseeking market manipulation and the undermining of our democracies that goes with it.
Fuck them.
It’s an open forum. Any one that cares can take you up on your arguments.
reply
Yes and I welcome anyone to do so :)
Contest of ideas is fundamental to a free open market just as narrative rigging via paid social media consultants and MSM is central to the established rentseeking cartels and monopolies and thus the biggest cartel monopoly of all is very active in seeking to redefine the understanding and use of Bitcoin from P2P MoE to speculative commodity!
As a speculative commodity Bitcoin is much less of a threat to the fiat debt farming bankers and complicit governments.
reply